John Phillips: Yes, a Car Manufacturer Once Sent Me Money

I admit, that's gonna look bad when it's outed by the Times in the midst of my bid for Sewage Commissioner.

I know that two words were conjoined to fashion the term “blog,” a sorrowful appellation that, to my ear, still sounds like one of the steps necessary to pump a septic tank.

Jimbo: “Hey, is that blog clogged?”

Todd: “Hell, that blog’s, like, busted.”

I nonetheless recently began “responding to comments on C/D's online digital social forum"—a pretentious and impossibly awkward description of what I thought was blogging but wasn’t—at the behest of a woman in our office, who assured me I would not be injured. Unfortunately, she misjudged the thickness of my skin, which was immediately and repeatedly chafed by mysteriously enraged readers who apparently believe that an accusatory opinion fashioned over a deliberative period spanning five seconds in fact trumps critical thinking, research, and, well, facts. And in today’s America, that apparently is so.

Much of the splatter attached itself to a comparo I authored [“War Rooms,” August 2010], in which an Audi A6 defeated an Infiniti M37 and a BMW 535i. “Phillips must’ve been under the influence to give victory to an A6,” commented one.

"War Rooms" contenders

Sadly, Phillips cannot determine the winner of anything. He has but one vote, same as every driver. At the end of a comparo, ballots are collected, then tallied in isolation, long after we surrender the keys. No lobbying, no tampering. How did I rig this for Audi? More important, why would I?

Well, that was answered by another fully gorge-risen conspiracy theorist, who opined, “Everyone knows it’s the advertisers who determine the winner.” Really? If so, the winner would have been Infiniti, because neither Audi nor BMW advertised in that issue. And I can’t tell you when they last advertised, either, because I’ve never looked. Nor have I ever visited our ad salesmen’s office—don’t know where it is, even—nor have they ever contacted me.

“The Audi won because it sells newsstand copies,” railed a third bellicose reader. I know few things in life with dead certainty, but here’s one: No one knows what sells magazines. No one.

Ferrari 599XX

Now, let us speak of free press trips. I rarely take trips abroad anymore because I’d rather undergo hemorrhoid surgery on a picnic table during a family reunion than board an airplane. But I used to, and sometimes I stayed in four-star resorts and sometimes I stayed in a seedy, dour, linoleum-floored motel behind a gas station, as happened last May on a Ferrari 599XX trip to Vallelunga. Asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton replied, “Because that’s where the money is,” and the dirty little secret about press trips is that you go, like it or not, because that’s where the cars are. Not only the cars, but also the executives and engineers who build the cars, it being cheaper to fly us to them than vice versa. For every instance I’ve stayed at a place like the Hotel Gritti Palace, I’ve stayed 10 times in a Japanese businessman’s hotel in an industrial cul-de-sac in Nagoya, where the entire bathroom is a single plastic extrusion so minuscule that you’re warned not to urinate standing up lest you soil your two-ounce pillow.

Gifts? Three editors ago, William Jeanes informed, “As far as gifts from manufacturers are concerned, a $25 windbreaker is the intergalactic limit.” If we were proffered something dearer and actually desired it, William vowed he’d cough up the cash difference. I tested his assertion during a ’97 trip to Ford’s cold-weather facility in a portion of Manitoba where God lost his shoes and journalists discovered on their hotel beds a spectacular Eddie Bauer parka, no blue ovals attached. I asked the PR guy the coat’s value. “About $300,” he said. I called William, who replied, “Tell them the check is in the mail.” And it was.

Actually, if anyone were to take the time to investigate—an undertaking I suspect conveniently eliminates the entire universe of social-media Puff Daddy whatever-they-call-themselves today—one would discover that I once took money from a manufacturer. It was following a 1996 Porsche trip to Le Mans. On the flight over, Northwest Airlines lost my luggage and food-poisoned Porsche’s PR man, the late Bob Carlson, who, on the drive from Paris to the track, barfed on my lone pair of khakis. There then ensued several-zillion-francs’ worth of long-distance calls, a shopping trip to a pharmacy (for Bob) and to a clothier (for me), plus a four-digit bar tab racked up by the journalists we left unchaperoned in our absence. “Can you lend me some cash?” Bob probed.

Two weeks later, a check arrived from Porsche Cars of North America, repaying me in full. I should have requested a personal check from Bob but didn’t think of it until too late. So, I admit, that one’s gonna look bad when it’s outed by the Times in the midst of my bid to become County Sewage Commissioner. (My campaign slogan: “If it floats, John’s got his eye on it.”)

So, let us recap: I’ve never taken money from a manufacturer. I’ve never rigged a comparo. I’ve never taken money from an advertiser. According to a famous U.S. court, however, it turns out I’m free to accept any amount of corporate campaign cash. Arms outstretched, I await.